The wide spread use of embossed credit cards has generated an increased need in maintaining secrecy and security of confidential financial business information. Particularly, the use of multi-part business forms at retail point of sale transactions has created a particular problem relating to the disposal of carbon transfer sheets which are typically interleaved between the multi-part form pages. During a retail credit transaction, an embossed personal credit card is presented to the retailer who places it within an imprinting machine which transfers account and transaction information to the business form. When the transaction is complete, the retailer tears the form apart, discarding the set of carbons, providing the customer with one copy and retaining one or more store copies. Although the various form parts retained by the customer and retailer are afforded secure treatment, the carbons themselves, containing the same confidential information are routinely discarded in a waste basket and are thus accessible to unauthorized third parties.
Because of the widespread increase in consumer credit fraud, consumers are becoming aware of the problem and insist on the carbons being torn by the retailer prior to being discarded or, alternatively, take the carbons with them. Unfortunately, both of these solutions have shortcomings. Typically, a carbon set is only torn in half or into four segments which can be readily pieced together. Although the consumer's retention of the carbon sheets will ensure against their unauthorized use, such sheets are inherently dirty and can easily transfer stains to clothing, hand bags and the like.
Although paper shredders have long been in use, they are generally not application specific and are sized large enough to receive full size sheets of paper (typically 81/2" by 11"). Such shredders include oversized motor drives to avoid jamming even when a large number of sheets are simultaneously fed into the shredder. It has been found that commercially available shredders are wholly unsuitable for disposing of the thin tissue like material of carbon sets. Additionally, because carbon sets are relatively small, the use of a large general purpose shredder will not ensure that its orientation is maintained for uniform shredding. In fact, tissue like carbons can pass unscathed through some larger type shredders. Because of their size and cost, conventional shredders are not suitable for use at retail point of sale. Furthermore, customers are left with an uneasy feeling inasmuch as conventional shredders do not provide visual verification that the shredding process was successfully completed. Another disadvantage of existing shredders is that they can be extremely noisy and hazardous to use by untrained personnel.
A still further disadvantage of prior art shredders such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,717,085 to Crane entitled "Document Shredding Machines", is that the shredding is accomplished by a series of roller knives which cut the entire document into a plurality of strips which are simultaneously discharged into and unsecured waste container. Although difficult, enough strip waste pieces can be reassembled by an unscrupulous individual to extract valuable information inasmuch as the bins are not typically provided with locking devices. Furthermore, key information such as an account number is typically located on a narrow field on the form that can survive the shredding intact.